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S'ije Sotntt^tt fitll© 



Being a Brief Record of Significant 

Facts in the Early History 

of the Hill Country of 

Somerset County 

New Jersey 



^ 



By 

Ludwig Schumacher 



New Amsterdam Book Company 

156 Fifth Avenue New York 

2.^ 



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TO 

F. P. OLCOTT 

OF 

Round Top Farm 
Bernardsville 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

" When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre 

He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea ; 
An' what he thought ^e might require, 
'E went an' took — the same as me ! " 

In the preparation of this little book, the usual 
sources have been consulted. These have been 
found in the collections of the New Jersey, New 
York and Pennsylvania Historical Societies. To 
these have been added some oral traditions, now 
first put in form, and some materials culled from 
unpublished manuscripts. In brief, to use the 
words of the immortal creator of Don Quixote, 
** though seemingly the parent, I am in truth, 
only the stepfather " of these historic excursions 
and digressions. 

MILLINGTON, N.J. 
October, 1900. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PASS 

I. General Survey - - - - 1 1 

II. Indian Tradition and History - 20 

III. Society in Colonial Somerset - 29 

IV. Pluckamin and Bedminister - - 41 
V. Bernardsville _ - - - 62 

VI. Basking Ridge - - - - 71 

VII. Lamington - - - - - III 

VIII. Mendham, Peapack, etc. - - 118 

IX. Epilogue __ - - - 123 

X. Notes on Illustrations - - - 129 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 



Frontispiece. 

"The Dust of a Vanished Race " - Facing 20 
The Stirling Arms ----- 40 

General Knox's Headquarters, Bed- 
minster ----- Facing 54 

Sir Francis Bernard - - - '' 62 

Facsimile of General Lee's Writing - 70 

Mrs. White's Tavern - - Facing 76 

Caricature of General Lee - - ''78 

East Front of Stirling Manor House *' ^6 

William Alexander first Lord Stirling ** 92 

Major-General the Earl of Stirling ** loi 

The Somerset Arms - - - - no 

Relics of The Buildings - - - - 128 



THE SOMERSET HILLS 



T 



I. 

GENERAL SURVEY. 

HE traveller needs but a slight acquaintance 
with London in order to recall the huge 
building or series of buildings looming over the 
Thames known as Somerset House. It was 
built on the site of the erstwhile palace of the 
Dukes of Somerset in the year 1776 — a signifi- 
cant date in American annals. The relationship 
existing between the town house of the Protes- 
tant Protector during the minority of King 
Edward VI. and the Somerset Hills of New 
Jersey is not apparent. But a brief inquiry into 
the origin of names will bring us to fair Somer- 
setshire in Old England, the ancestral home of 
Henry Vlll.'s brother-in-law, and so too, doubt- 
less, of the early settlers of Somerset County. 



12 The Somerset Hills. 



Perhaps they found in these New Jersey foot- 
hills some suggestions of the mountains, moors, 
and fens that characterize old Somersetshire, 
the land of Lorna Doone and John Ridd, the 
West Wales of the romances of Arthur and his 
Round Table. 

In any case, the county name records the 
memory of their old home for all time. So, too, 
the townships of Bridgewater and Bedminster, 
and the town of High Bridge, once within the 
county limits, but now across the borders of 
Hunterdon County, are but names transplanted 
from old Somerset. And who shall say that 
this new Somerset, no less than the old, may 
not claim "a fine soft atmosphere all its own" ? 

The aristocratic tradition of Somerset County 
neither begins nor ends with the association in 
name with an English ducal house. The Duke 
of York, the first Lord Proprietor of the Colony, 
deeded all the land within the present limits of 
the State to two arch-aristocrats, John, Lord 



The Somerset Hills. 13 

Berkeley, and Sir Philip Carteret. The trifling 
gift was in recognition of their loyalty to the 
House of Stuart. Berkeley had accompanied 
the Stuarts into exile, and Carteret, governor 
of the Island of Jersey, had endeared himself to 
the royal house by a determined defence of the 
island against the parliamentary troops. Divid- 
ing their estate into two parts, the dividing line 
passed through the Somerset Hills. The greater 
part of the county, however, was in East Jer- 
sey, whose capital was Perth Amboy, from 
which centre the county was developed. Only 
a small portion fell to West Jersey, the estate 
of Lord Berkeley. But in 1673, Lord Berkeley 
lost all faith in the possibilities of his American 
estate, and sold out for the sum of ^1,000 
all his interests to one John Fenwick, a Quaker, 
who purchased it in trust for Edward Byllinge, 
also a Quaker. This sale was destined to mo- 
mentous consequences in the colonial develop- 
ment of America. It led directly to ''one of 



14 The Somerset Hills. 



the pivotal events of American history "—the 
coming of the Quakers to the middle Colonies. 
For a dispute between Fenwick and Byllinge 
over the purchase was brought to William Penn 
for adjudication, in the process of which he 
became interested in American real estate. 

East Jersey was soon subdivided by Car- 
teret's heirs, and again subdivided until the 
Lords-Proprietors numbered twenty-four. Every 
foot of ground belongs to the present owner 
as successor to these proprietors, by and through 
the rules of Common and Statutory Law. 

The aristocratic tradition is well maintained ; 
for in the last century, we find that Catherine, 
Duchess of Gordon, of Gordon Castle, Scotland, 
a daughter of the Earl of Aberdeen, was a large 
landowner in both Bedminster and Bridgewater 
townships. In local parlance, this tract is still 
referred to as **The Duchess." A mention of 
the Duchess of Gordon suggests a link of as- 
sociation with a classic repartee. The Duchess 



The Somerset Hills. i 5 

married General Staats Morris, whose brother, 
the celebrated Gouverneur Morris, induced her 
to invest in American real estate, acting as her 
agent in the Somerset County purchase. While 
Gouverneur Morris was at the French Court, 
his personal resemblance to the King, Louis 
XVI., was a subject of general comment. The 
king himself noted it and once remarked to 
Morris: "You bear a striking resemblance to 
our family ; was your mother much at court?" 
'*No," replied Morris, "but my father was." 
This was a favourite story of the late Lord Tenny- 
son, who accounted it a brilliant illustration of 
the world's stock of anecdotes of this class. 
It is possibly mythical in the personal application 
to Morris, but his resemblance to the House of 
Bourbon, together with a reputation as a wit, 
makes it entirely possible. 

To continue the county tradition. Lord Neil 
Campbell, brother of the Duke of Argyle, lived 
in state on an estate of sixteen hundred acres 



1 6 The Somerset Hills. 

near the junction of the north and south branches 
of the Raritan River. He was devoted to the 
cause of "The Pretender" and saved his head 
by escaping to the Colonies. His grandson, 
John Stevens, married Betty Alexander, sister 
of the last Earl of Stirling. They are the ances- 
tors of the distinguished Stevens family of 
Hoboken. 

The Earl of Stirling proved his title clear in 
1760 and then returned to his estate at Bask- 
ing Ridge, and spent his time, to use his own 
words, *'in settling a good farm in the wilder- 
ness and bringing to it some of the productions 
and improvements of Europe." That aristocratic 
tradition and ancestry were not incompatible 
with the type of patriotism that gave birth to 
a great republic in 1776, is abundantly shown 
in the annals of the American Revolutionary 
struggle. 

The early settlers of Somerset were most 
heterogeneous, both in rank and nationality. 



The Somerset Hills. 17 

There were English and Scotch gentlemen and 
yeomen, Dutch burghers and peasants, and Ger- 
mans from the Palatinate, many of whom were 
redemptioners. We may trace their origin in the 
religious societies and congregations that still 
exist, some of which have records of a historic 
continuity of more than two centuries. Several 
Protestant Episcopal parishes have their origin 
with the mother-church of England, and were 
doubtless centres of settlements by the English. 
Luthern congregations were organized by the 
German immigrants ; Presbyterian by Scotch 
Calvinists ; and the Dutch Reformed churches 
scattered through the central and southern part 
of the country speak for the land of dikes and 
ditches, the land of William the Silent and 
John of Barneveld. 

The earliest specific reference we fmd to the 
Somerset Hill country is in a report to the 
proprietors of East Jersey. In answer to one 
of their inquiries of their agents, the report 



1 8 The Somerset Hills 

dated March, 1684, says : "There are also hills 
up in the country, but how much ground they 
take up we know not; they are said to be stony 
and covered with wood, and beyond them is 
said to be excellent land." 

The existence of Somerset County dates from 
1688, when it was set off from the neighbor- 
ing county of Middlesex. But it was some 
twenty-five years before it was sufficiently or- 
ganized to have courts of its own for the ad- 
ministration of justice, and a county seat. Six 
Mile Run, Hillsborough, and Somerville were 
successively the county capital, the present ad- 
ministration buildings at Somerville dating from 
1798. 

In Smith's "History of New Jersey, " published 
in 1765, the description of the county records: 
"The land is rich and being settled by the in- 
dustrious low Dutch and a few others, much 
improved wheat is the staple of the county of 
which they raise large quantities ; they send 



The Somerset Hills. 19 

their flower down Rariton River, to New York." 
The first permanent settlement within the 
present bounds of the county was made in 1681. 
In 1665 the first English governor, Philip Car- 
teret, issued a publication entitled "Concessions 
and Agreements of the Lords-Proprietors." The 
object of this was to encourage emigration, 
and as an immediate result several families from 
Piscataqua, in the then province of Massachu- 
setts, settled Piscataway. Pushing westward 
from this point along the line of the old Indian trail, 
the settlement soon spread across the present 
borders of Somerset, and with the settlement of 
Bound Brook in 1681 the county history begins 
as a matter of written record. 



20 The Somerset Hills. 



II. 
INDIAN TRADITION AND HISTORY. 

AS with other prehistoric peoples, we are 
largely dependent upon oral tradition for 
our theories of the genesis and evolution of the 
American Indian race. By a careful considera- 
tion of their weird and fantastic traditions, we 
may reach a plausible working theory when 
these are supported by circumstantial evidence. 
The Indians who roamed through the Somer- 
set Hills are classed as Algonquins, the huge 
family whose territory extended from the Mis- 
sissippi to the Atlantic and from the Carolinas 
to Hudson Bay. ''Like a great island in the 
midst of the Algonquins, lay the country of the 
tribes speaking the generic tongues of the Iro- 
quois." The true Iroquois, or Five Nations, ex- 
tended through Central New York, from the 
Hudson to the Genesee River. The particular 




"The Dust of a Vanished Race" 



The Somerset Hills. 21 



tribe occupying New Jersey, so far as it was 
occupied, is now termed Delawares, though 
they called themselves Lenni-Lenape, and the 
country they occupied between the Hudson and 
Delaware Rivers they call "Scheyichbi." The 
Indians were never numerous in this State ; in- 
deed, the whole family of Algonquins is estimated 
within a quarter of a million, and at no time 
after the discovery by Europeans numbered 
more than two thousand in New Jersey. In 
New England, attracted thither possibly by the 
bounty of the sea, they were more numerous. 
The Algonquin traditions all agree that their 
remote ancestors came from a region west of 
the Mississippi. Like the story of the Aryan 
migrations from the region about the Caspian 
Sea, there seems to have been successive tides 
of migration, each crowding its forerunner 
toward the sea. They believed that previous 
to their incarnation they were all animals, and 
lived in caves under the earth. One of them 



22 The Somerset Hills. 

accidentally discovered a hole leading out to 
the sunshine, and then they all followed him 
out and found it so pleasant that they began 
life anew. They gradually developed into human 
beings, learned to hunt and fish, and practised 
a rude agriculture. They still claim kinship to 
their animal ancestors, it would seem, for we 
still hear of such chiefs as "Sitting Bull" and 
"Big Bear." 

The Lenni-Lenape in their march eastward 
came in friendly contact with an earlier migra- 
tion from the Northwest, called the Mengwe, 
later known as the Iroquois. Their common 
progress was disputed by another powerful tribe 
known as the Alligewi, who disputed their 
right to advance. Neither tribe being strong 
enough to vanquish the Alligewi, they joined 
forces and completely annihilated them. Then 
the Lenape and Mengwe parted company, the 
latter settling in the vicinity of the Great Lakes, 
and the former continuing eastward. The Le- 



The Somerset Hills. 23 

nape crossed the AUeghanies, a name com- 
memorating their vanquished enemies, the 
Alligewi, and in course of time reached the 
Delaware, which they called Lenape-Whittuck, — 
the River of the Lenape. Then crossing over the 
river they took possession of the land and 
called it Scheyichbi. 

Such is the Indian tradition. They surely 
found game and fish in abundance ; deer were 
plentiful ; bears, wolves, and panthers were 
quite too numerous to permit even the idle life 
of the aborigines to drift into monotony. The 
fertile bottom lands of the rivers were easily 
cultivated, and here they usually planted their 
maize and built their wigwams. On a single 
farm near Basking Ridge, along the upper 
courses of the Passaic River, several hundred 
flint and quartz arrowheads, and some fifty 
tomahawks, have been picked up in recent 
years. At still another point irregular fragments 
of flint, and imperfect arrowheads, celts, and 



24 The Somerset Hills. 

tomahawks, seem to indicate the site of an 
arrow "factory." An ** amulet " too is occasion- 
ally met with. These are curious and varied in 
shape, sometimes resembling a bird, sometimes 
a rabbit or other animal. They are sometimes 
rudely decorated — or are the decorations hiero- 
glyphics ? Throughout Bedminster township, 
too, these relics of the American Stone Age 
have frequently been found. 

The Indian trails connecting the Delaware 
River with the ocean crossed Somerset County 
in several places. The main one followed the 
lower course of the Raritan River, between New 
Brunswick and a point on the Delaware north 
of Trenton. The natural course of settlement 
was along these trails, but it is a matter of 
great pride to the people of the State that the 
country was peaceably occupied by purchasing 
the lands from the Indians. No bloody Indian 
wars interrupted the development of the Col- 
ony. Disputes occasionally arose as the pur- 



The Somerset Hills. 25 

chases multiplied, but the matter was amicably 
adjusted by the colonial government, and a 
reservation of three thousand acres in Burlington 
County was set aside for their use. Here the 
remnants of the Lenapes settled and became 
known as the Edge-Pillocks. In 1801 they 
were invited by the Mohicans of New York to 
join them. The invitation was in terms both 
cordial and picturesque: **Pack up your mats," 
said the Mohicans, **and come and eat out of 
our dish which is large enough for all, and our 
necks are stretched in looking toward the fire- 
side of our grandfather till they are as long 
as cranes." 

The Edge-Pillocks sold their lands and joined 
the Mohicans. Both tribes soon decided to buy 
lands in Michigan and settle there, but they 
did not prosper. In 1832 the whole remnant 
of these New Jersey Indians numbered only 
forty. They therefore sent their oldest chief, 
one Bartholomew Calvin, to petition the New 



26 The Somerset Hills. 



Jersey legislature for aid, making a claim for cer- 
tain hunting and fishing rights they still held. 
They claimed but two thousand dollars, which 
amount the legislature readily granted. * * It is 
a proud fact in the history of New Jersey," 
said Samuel L. Southard, a native of Basking 
Ridge, on this occasion, "that every foot of 
her soil has been obtained from the Indians by 
fair and voluntary purchase and transfer — a fact 
that no other State in the Union, not even the 
land that bears the name of Penn, can boast 
of." These sentiments were indorsed by the 
Indian agent in his address to the legislature. 
He was a full-blooded Indian, called by his 
people Shawriskhekung or Wilted Grass. He 
was educated in Princeton College by a Mis- 
sionary Society which had named him Bar- 
tholomew Calvin. In closing his address, he 
said : " Not a drop of our blood have you spill- 
ed in battle, not an .acre of our land have you 
taken but by our consent. These facts speak for 



The Somerset Hills. 27 

themselves and need no comment. They place 
the character of New Jersey in bold relief and 
bright example to those States within whose 
territorial limits our brethren still remain. Noth- 
ing but blessings can fall upon her from the 
lips of Lenni-Lenape." 

There is a record, however, of one Indian 
brave who refused to follow the tribe West. 
He with his squaw returned to Burlington 
County and settled near Mount Holly, where 
they died some twenty years later. They left 
a daughter, a tall, powerful woman who was 
known throughout the country as Indian Ann. 
She lived to a great age, dying in 1894, with 
the melancholy distinction of the ''Last of 
Lenni-Lenapes in New Jersey." 

"Ascending the St. Lawrence," says Francis 
Parkman, ''it was seldom that the sight of a 
human form gave relief to the loneliness, until 
at Quebec, the roar of Champlain's cannon from 
the verge of the cliff announced that the savage 



28 The Somerset Hills. 



prologue of the American drama was drawing 
to a close, and that the civilization of Europe 
was advancing on the scene." In New Jersey, 
haply, the advance was accomplished with no 
record of cruelty or wrong. 



The Somerset Hills. 29 



III. 
SOCIETY IN COLONIAL SOMERSET. 

THE colonial population of Somerset County 
was far from homogeneous. It was liter- 
ally composed of all sorts and conditions of men. 
There were English, Scotch, Dutch, German, 
Indians, and of negroes there were not a few. 
There was a corresponding diversity in rank, 
for class distinctions, both in theory and in fact, 
were as fully recognized as they were in the 
mother countries. But colonial society added 
yet another social condition — that of the negro 
slave. We find within the narrow limits of 
Somerset County the noble, the slave, and all 
the intermediate ranks ; all this too in a scattered 
population probably never much exceeding 
6,000 souls. 

The international conscience of the civilized 
world on the subject of slavery was not yet 



3© The Somerset Hills. 



awakened. The traffic proved to be extremely 
profitable, and its interests were carefully fos- 
tered by the home Government. In theory the 
institution was as fully accepted in the North as 
it was in the South, and the fact that they soon 
became more numerous in the South is due 
chiefly to conditions of climate and occupation. 
The moral and economic aspects of the question 
were not seriously considered until a period 
shortly prior to the Revolution. Stern New 
England Puritans did not hesitate to engage in 
the traffic and amass fortunes thereby. Peter 
Faneuil, the Boston Huguenot merchant, was, 
we are told, " on the one hand piling up profits 
from his immense slave trade, while on the 
other occupied in private and public charities, and 
in the erection of a Cradle of Liberty in Boston." 
As Professor John Fiske humorously observes, 
*'It takes men a weary while to learn the 
wickedness of anything that puts gold in their 
purses." The pious woman who retorted to 



The Somerset Hills. 31 

the author of "The Negro's and Indian's Ad- 
vocate" that "he might as well baptize puppies 
as negroes" was not unique. The question 
before the United States Supreme Court in the 
famous Dred Scott case was no new thing. So 
early as 1667, nearly two centuries before Chief- 
Justice Taney's decision, the Virginia House of 
Burgesses enacted: "Whereas, some doubts 
have arisen whether children that are slaves by 
birth and by the charity and piety of their 
owners made partakers of the blessed sacrament 
of baptisme, should by virtue of their baptisme 
be made free : It is enacted and declared by 
this grand assembly and the power thereof, that 
the conferringe of baptisme doth not alter the 
condition of the person as to his bondage or 
fTreedom ; that diverse masters, ffreed from this 
doubt, may more carefully endeavor the propa- 
gation of Christianity by permitting children, 
though slaves, or those of greater growth if 
capable, to be admitted to that sacrament." 



32 



The Somerset Hills. 



The extent to which it obtained in New Jersey 
is not definitely known, but in proportion to its 
population, it was far in excess of any other 
colony north of the Mason and Dixon line. 
They were most numerous in those parts of the 
country settled by the Dutch, presumably be- 
cause the Dutch colonial interests in the tropics 
and their vocation as traders had familiarized 
them with the institution. The total population 
of the State in 1726 numbered 32,442, of which 
eight per cent, were negro slaves. The same 
year, out of a total population in Somerset 
County of 2,271 souls, 17 percent, were negro 
slaves, and this ratio was exceeded in two 
other counties. In the year 1800 the proportion 
of negroes to whites was still nearly as great, 
and they then numbered 1,863. In the early 
years of the century a series of laws were 
enacted for their gradual emancipation, and by 
1830 the total number in Somerset County 
numbered but 78. 



The Somerset Hills. 



33 



Negroes in Somerset County were valuable 
property. In an inventory of an estate at 
Branchburg, settled in 1764, there is mention of 
six slaves varying in value from £,^0 to £ri^ 
each. Again, a few years later^ we find the 
following bill of sale : "July 10, 1768, John 
Van Nest, of Bridgewater (now Branchburg) 
sold to Peter Van Nest, a certain Neger Winch 
named Mary, and a neger boy named Jack for 
the sum of ;£"66, York currency." 

Nor shall we have to go South, or to the 
pages of * 'Uncle Tom's Cabin," for instances of 
barbaric cruelty. There are records of revolting 
brutality in the execution of the death penalty. 
For murder or assault, the slave was burnt alive, 
and for certain petty misdemeanors, hanging 
was considered none too severe by the colonial 
courts. In 1694 a justice of Monmouth County 
pronounced sentence on a negro murderer in 
the following terms : ''Caesar, thou art found 
guilty by thy country of those horrid crimes 



34 The Somerset Hills. 



that are laid to thy charge : therefore, the court 
doth judge that thou, the said Caesar, shall 
return to the place from whence thou earnest, 
and from thence to the place of execution, when 
thy right hand shall be cut off and burned 
before thine eyes. Then thou shalt be hanged 
up by the neck till thou art dead, dead, dead : 
then thy body shall be cut down and burned 
to ashes in a fire, and so the Lord have mercy 
on thy soul, Caesar." 

From such sombre pictures, it is a relief to 
turn to a consideration of the fashionable life of 
the Colony. Here we have glimpses of colour, 
gayety, and grace sufficient for the composition 
of a Watteau picture. Midway between New 
England and Pennsylvania, the social life of New 
Jersey was neither so austere as was that of the 
Puritans nor yet so sombre as that of the 
Quakers across the Delaware. It was more in 
touch and sympathy with the gayety of Knick- 
erbocker New York and Cavalier Virginia. So 



The Somerset Hills. 35 

we may read of gay doings in the old Capitol 
at Perth Amboy ; of men in crimson and satin 
garments, gold laced and frilled, with silver 
buttons engraved with monograms ; in silk 
stockings and jewelled shoe buckles ; in hats 
cocked and laced, and powdered wigs ; with 
gold snuff-boxes and gold-headed walking-sticks. 

And the ladies were even more ''smart" in 
gorgeous apparel. They wore gorgeous bro- 
caded silks and satins, large hats with streaming 
feathers, jewels, gay ear-pendants ; they pow- 
dered and puffed their hair, painted and patched 
their faces. We hear of all these vanities ; they 
are no new things in these later days. An 
advertisement in the New York Gazette of 1733 
reads: "Morrison, Peruke maker from London, 
dresses gentlemen's and ladies' hair in the 
politest taste. He has a choice parcel of human, 
horse, and goat hair to dispose of." 

''The apparel oft proclaims the man" and 
woman. It is but a step from the world's 



36 The Somerset Hills. 



stage to the mimic stage. The first theatre 
company to visit the Colonies appeared in Perth 
Amboy in 1752, and fashionable New Jersey 
society received the innovation with open arms. 
Long years after^ old ladies recalled with rap- 
ture the beauty and charm of the leading lady 
as Jane Shore. In marked contrast to all this, 
in the year 1750, the Assembly of the province 
of Massachusetts forbade theatrical representa- 
tions because, that body held, ''they tend greatly 
to increase immorality, impiety, and a con- 
tempt of religion." 

The colonial administration of America abounds 
in memories of gentlemen of distinction no less 
than in tyrannical time-servers and selfish poli- 
ticians. Of the gentlemen, the Colony of New 
Jersey was favoured with not a few. Of such 
was Col. Robert Hunter, who was appointed 
to the governorship of the provinces of New 
York and New Jersey early in the eighteenth 
century in the reign of Queen Anne. 



The Somerset Hills. 37 

It was during his administration that Northern 
Somerset County was settled, and the western 
portion was set off as a separate county, named 
in compliment to him. Hunter-don. He was a 
personal friend of Addison, Steele, and Swift, 
and was thus in close touch with the literary 
life of the Augustan Age of English letters. 
Indeed, it is said he owed his appointment to 
Addison, who was then Under Secretary of State. 
Himself a graceful and witty writer, it would 
seem that he shared the mantle of the brilliant 
dean of St. Patrick's. Writing to Swift from 
the executive mansion, Perth Amboy, under 
date of March 13, 17 13, he says : ''This is the 
finest air to live upon in the universe ; and, if 
our trees and birds could speak, and our assem- 
blymen be silent, the finest conversation also." 

The consecration of Swift to the bishopric of 
the Church of England in America was once 
seriously considered. The plan was abandoned, 
however, and the mother Church never sent a 



38 The Somerset Hills. 



bishop across seas to the American Colonies. 
The American episcopate of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, therefore, dates from a period after 
the Revolution, nearly a century after the plan 
of sending Jonathan Swift hither was considered. 
Had he been sent to the new world instead of 
to Ireland perhaps " Gulliver's Travels" had not 
been written, and Stella and Vanessa had not 
languished. 

All functions relating to the administration of 
the Government were attended with great dignity 
and ceremony. These, of course, were based 
on English precedent, some of them, indeed, 
being still in force. Judges on a circuit were 
''met outside of the town by the sheriff, justices 
of the peace, and other gentlemen on horseback 
who conducted them in honour to their lodg- 
ings." When Lord Stirling, a distinguished son 
of Somerset, officially attended the Governor's 
Council, ''he rode in a great coach with gilded 
panels, emblazoned with coronets and medal- 



The Somerset Hills. 39 



lions, and altogether affected a style and splen- 
dour probably unequalled in the Colonies." 
A contemporary speaks of the equipage of 
Governor Lewis Morris (Governor of New Jersey 
from 1738 to 1746) rolling down Broadway 
"with silver mountings glittering in the sun- 
shine and the family arms emblazoned upon it 
in many places." To support all this state, 
private fortunes were expended, and salaries 
were out of all proportion to modern ratios. 
The salary of the royal governor of New Jersey, 
a modest little colony which at no time before 
the Revolution numbered more than 150,000, 
is estimated at quite or nearly ;^i,ooo. 

Indeed, to reconstruct the social life in the 
Colonies, even in the modest little province of 
New Jersey, it would seem necessary to deduct 
but little from the brilliant pen pictures of Thack- 
eray and Macaulay which depict contemporary 
England. One important deduction must, how- 
ever, be borne in mind : Architecturally, the 



40 



The Somerset Hills. 



colonial mansion, be it ever so ** stately," could 
never rival the manor house or castle of Old 
England. The colonial houses developed in the 
English American Colonies have a beauty and 
fitness of their own, but they are not to be 
compared to the splendour that ** falls on castle 
walls" of enduring stone, or to the domestic 
beauty and comfort of a Tudor manor house. 





The Somerset Hills. 41 



IV. 
PLUCKAMIN AND BEDMINSTER. 

THE name of the village of Pluckamin is 
of doubtful origin. It is probably de- 
rived from an Indian word of uncertain mean- 
ing from which we get our word persimmon. 
The settlement of the village dates about the 
middle of the eighteenth century. The names 
of the early settlers, together with the early 
religious history of the village, indicate a Dutch 
and German origin of the first land-holders of 
Pluckamin. St. Paul's Lutheran Church was 
erected in 1756, and maintained a vigorous 
existence for the next generation. The con- 
gregation was gradually absorbed by the Pres- 
byterians whose church building is near the 
site of the Lutheran Church which was torn 
down early in the nineteenth century. 
At the outbreak of the revolution, it was a 



42 The Somerset Hills. 



flourishing village, and situated as it is on the 
highroad between Trenton and Morristown, 
was the scene of many marchings and counter- 
marching, of halts and incidents worthy of 
recollection. After the battle of Princeton early 
in January, 1777, Washington wished to attack 
the British at New Brunswick before going into 
winter quarters at Morristown. But the jaded 
condition of his small army led him to abandon 
the plan, and so, bearing to the northwest 
of the enemy, he reached Pluckamin on Satur- 
day, the 4th of January, halting there over 
Sunday. The wounded were quartered in the 
village; the British prisoners, numbering nearly 
three hundred, were quartered in the Lutheran 
Church which was turned into a temporary 
prison. The army camped on a snow-covered 
hill to the south of the village. The head- 
quarters of Washington during these two event- 
ful days was the Fenner house, still standing. 
Here he wrote his official report of the battle 



The Somerset Hills. 43 

of Princeton and immediately dispatched it to 
Congress by Col. Henry. The moral effect of 
the victories of Trenton and Princeton to the 
American cause is almost incalculable. As 
strategic successes they rank with the brilliant 
achievements of any war. The ageing King of 
Prussia, Frederick the Great, who watched the 
progress of the war in America with keen 
interest, pronounced them master-strokes of 
military genius. There was no community of 
interest between the Prussian autocrat and the 
American Colonists, but, like the figures on a 
chess board, the game deeply interested him as 
a study in military science. His admiration of 
the strategic skill displayed in the movements 
on Trenton and Princeton led him to send to 
Washington a sword with the complimentary 
inscription, ''From the oldest general in the 
world to the greatest." 

The Commander-in-chiefs modest official re- 
port of the engagement at Princeton, penned 



44 The Somerset Hills. 

on that busy mid-winter Sunday spent in Pluck- 
amin, is well worth perusal and is inserted here 
unabridged : 

Pluckamin, 5 Jan. 1777. 

To THE President of Congress. 

Sir : I have the honour to inform you that since 
the date of my last from Trenton I have re- 
moved with the army under my command to 
this place. The difficulty of crossing the Dela- 
ware on account of the ice made our passage 
over it tedious, and gave the enemy an oppor- 
tunity of drawing in their several cantonments, 
•and assembling their whole force at Princeton. 
Their large pickets advanced towards Trenton, 
their great preparations, and some intelligence 
I had received added to their knowledge that 
the 1st of January brought on a dissolution of 
the best part of our army, gave me the strongest 
reason to conclude that an attack on us was 
meditating. Our situation was most critical and 
our force small. To remove immediately was 



The Somerset Hills. 45 

again destroying every dawn of hope which 
had began to revive in the breasts of the Jersey 
militia; and to bring those troops who had first 
crossed the Delaware, and were lying at Cross- 
wicks under General Cadwalader, and those 
under General Mifflin at Bordentown (amount- 
ing in the whole to about three thousand six 
hundred) to Trenton was to bring them to an 
exposed place. One or the other^ however, 
was unavoidable. The latter was preferred and 
they were ordered to join us at Trenton^ which 
they did by a night march on the ist instant. 
On the 2nd, according to my expectation, the 
enemy began to advance upon us; and after 
some skirmishing the head of their column 
reached Trenton about four o'clock, whilst their 
rear was as far back as Maidenhead. They 
attempted to pass Sanpink Creek, which runs 
through Trenton at different places, but finding 
the fords guarded, they halted and kindled their 
fires. 



46 The Somerset Hills. 



We were drawn up on the other side of the 
creek. In this situation we remained till dark, 
canonading the enemy and receiving the fire of 
their field pieces, which did us but little dam- 
age. Having by this time discovered the enemy 
were greatly superior in number, and that their 
design was to surround us, I ordered all our 
baggage to be removed silently to Burlington 
soon after dark; and at twelve o'clock, after 
renewing our fires and leaving guards at the 
bridge in Trenton and other passes on the same 
stream above, marched by a roundabout road 
to Princeton where I knew they could not have 
much force left and might have stores. One 
thing I was certain of, that it would avoid the 
appearance of a retreat which was of conse- 
quence, or to run the hazard of the whole army 
being cut off, whilst we might, by a fortunate 
stroke, withdraw General Howe from Trenton 
and give some reputation to our arms. Happily 
we succeeded; we found Princeton about sun- 



The Somerset Hills. 47 



rise with only three regiments and three troops 
of light-horse in it, two of which were on their 
march to Trenton. These three regiments, es- 
pecially the two first, made a gallant resistance, 
and in killed and wounded and prisoners must 
have lost five hundred men ; upwards of one 
hundred of them were left dead on the field ; 
and with what I have with me and what were 
taken in the pursuit and carried across the Dela- 
ware, there are near three hundred prisoners, 
fourteen of whom are officers, all British. 

This piece of good fortune is counterbalanced 
by the loss of the brave and worthy General 
Mercer, Colonels Hazlet and Potter, Captain Neal 
of the artillery, Captain Fleming who com- 
manded the first Virginia regiment, and four 
or five other valuable officers, who, with about 
twenty-five or thirty privates, were slain in the 
field. Our whole loss cannot be ascertained, 
as many who were in pursuit of the enemy 
(who were chased three or four miles) are not 



48 The Somerset Hills. 

yet come in. The rear of the enemy's army 
lying at Maidenhead not more than five or six 
miles from Princeton, was up with us before 
our pursuit was over, but as I had the precau- 
tion to destroy the Bridge over Stony Brook 
about half-a-mile from the field of action, they 
were so long retarded there as to give us time 
to move off in good order for this place. We 
took two brass field-pieces, but for want of 
horses could not bring them away. We also 
took some blankets, shoes, and a few other 
trifling articles, burned the hay and destroyed 
such other things as the shortness of time 
would admit of. 

My original plan when I set out from Trenton 
was to push on to Brunswic; but the harassed 
state of our troops, many of them having had 
no rest for two nights and a day, and the 
danger of losing the advantage we had gained 
by aiming at too much, induced me by the 
advice of my officers to relinquish the attempt. 



The Somerset Hills. 49 

But in my judgment, six or eight hundred fresh 
troops upon a forced march, would have de- 
stroyed all their stores and magazines, taken (as 
we have since learned) their military chest con- 
taining seventy thousand pounds, and put an 
end to the war. The enemy, from the best 
intelligence 1 have been able to get, were so 
much alarmed at the apprehension of this, that 
they marched immediately to Brunswic without 
halting except at the bridges (for I also took 
up those at Millstone on the different routes to 
Brunswic) and got there before day. From the 
best information 1 have received, General Howe 
has left no men either at Trenton or Princeton. 
The truth of this I am endeavoring to ascertain 
that 1 may regulate my movements accord- 
ingly. The militia are taking spirit and I am 
told are coming in fast from this State, but I 
fear those from Philadelphia will hardly submit 
to the hardships of a winter campaign much 
longer, especially as they, very unluckily, sent 



50 The Somerset Hills. 



their blankets with their baggage to Burlington. 
I must do them the justice, however, to add that 
they have undergone more fatigue and hardship 
than I expected militia, especially citizens, would 
have done at this inclement season. I am just 
moving to Morristown where I shall endeavor 
to put them under the best cover I can. Hith- 
erto we have been without any; and many of 
our poor soldiers quite barefoot and ill clad in 
other respects. 

I have the honour to be, etc. 

This was an eventful Sunday in the annals 
of the quiet Somerset village. Besides the Com- 
mander-in-chief, there were among others 
known to fame, Generals Greene, Knox, and 
Sullivan; there was, too, the venerated Dr. Ben- 
jamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of 
Independence, soon to be appointed surgeon- 
general of the army. Among the fourteen 
British officers captured and under guard was 



The Somerset Hills. 51 



one Captain William Leslie, son of the Earl of 
Leven, who was so severely wounded in the 
battle that he died soon after reaching Pluck- 
amin. Dr. Rush, who ministered to the dying 
captain, was a native of Philadelphia. He 
graduated from Princeton College at the early 
age of fifteen, and then studied medicine in 
Edinburgh where he took his degree. During 
his residence abroad, he knew the family of 
the Earl of Leven intimately. It was his mel- 
ancholy privilege to attend the dying captain 
in his last moments, and see him reverently 
interred in the Lutheran Cemetery. The journal 
of Captain Rodney of the Delaware line has the 
following record of the event: 

Pluckamin, N. J., Jan. 5, 1777. 
The General continued this day also to re- 
fresh the army. He ordered forty of our light 
infantry to attend the funeral of Colonel Leslie, 
to bury him with the honours of war. He 



52 The Somerset Hills. 



was one of the enemy who fell at Princeton. 
They readily obeyed in paying due respect to 
bravery, though in an enemy. Captain Henry 
was now gone home, and 1, myself, had com- 
mand of the five companies of infantry, but as 
I had not paid any attention to the military 
funeral ceremonies, 1 requested Captain Hum- 
phries (Humphreys ?) to conduct it. 

Dr. Rush had the grave marked with a head- 
stone bearing the following touching inscription : 

In memory of the 

Hon. Capt. William Leslie of the 

17th British Regiment. 

Son of the earl of Leven 

in Scotland. 

He fell January 3d, 1777, aged 26 years, 

at the Battle of Princeton. 

His friend, Benj. Rush, M. D., of 

Philadelphia, 

hath caused this stone to be erected as 

a mark of his esteem for his 

worth, and respect for 

his noble family. 



The Somerset Hills. 53 

About the year 1835 the crumbling tomb- 
stone was replaced by the then Earl of Leven. 
He ordered a literal copy of the inscription 
written by the good Dr. Rush, who, the day 
after the burial of Leslie, hurried off to Prince- 
ton to attend the dying General Mercer. 

More than a century later, another Phila- 
delphia physician was to find inspiration in 
the life and character of Dr. Rush. In Dr. 
Weir Mitchel's novel of the Revolution, **Hugh 
Wynne," Dr. Rush divides the honours and the 
interest with the nominal hero of the romance. 

Another incident of the halt at Pluckamin 
is not so sombre. This was the arrival 01 
Captain John Stryker's troop of Somerset 
horse, laden with some timely spoils of the 
enemy. Cornwallis, in his hurried retreat, had 
left several broken-down baggage wagons in 
charge of a guard of two hundred men. 
Captain Stryker with but twenty troopers, 
suddenly fell upon them at night and so 



■ W t tl a ~' T ' "Vt ir <• • • • • ■"-■■■ , ,i..n .,.,.■:.■•,.-, .1 a:. .-::».. . :. . j ■ . - 

54 The Somerset Hills. 

■ ■ ■ I 

terrorized the guard that they fled, leaving 
the baggage to fate. Captain Stryker promptly 
repaired the wagons, bringing them in triumph 
to the army during the halt at Pluckamin. 

In the disposition of the army during the 
winter of 1778-79, General Knox was in com- 
mand of an artillery corps, stationed at Pluck- 
amin while the Commander-in-chief made his 
headquarters in the Wallace house near Raritan. 
General Knox's headquarters were in the Van 
der Veer house near the Bedminster Church 
where he was joined by Mrs. Knox, who 
also spent the winter there. The corps, which 
boasted a fine artillery train captured from 
Burgoyne, was stationed near the village. 

Facing the parade ground was a building 
known as the Academy — enclosing a room 
thirty by fifty feet which did service as a 
lecture hall, for the camp was turned into 
a training school during the periods of inac- 
tivity. The camp known as Artillery Park was 



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173 



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pq 

c/T 
>-< 
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The Somerset Hills. 55 



the scene of much merry-making and social 
life during this winter. 

"You know what an agreeable circle of 
ladies this State afforded two years ago," 
wrote an officer to a brother of General Knox. 
"It is since much enlarged, so that we can 
(in military stile) at a moment's warning, parade 
a score or two." 

The most brilliant event of that season took 
place on February i8th (1779). It was a grand 
fSte and ball to celebrate the first anniversary 
of the French Alliance. There were military 
reviews and manoeuvres directed by Baron 
Steuben, the Inspector-General. There was a 
dinner followed by a display of fireworks and 
a grand ball. The company included all the 
army officers stationed at or near Pluckamin, 
the Commander-in-chief and his staff, and 
many people of distinction In residence near 
the camp. A grand pavilion one hundred feet 
long, roofed by thirteen arches, was decorated 



56 The Somerset Hills. 



with allegorical paintings executed for the 
occasion. The sixth of the thirteen arches 
was a grand illuminated representation of 
Louis XVI. as "The encourager of letters, 
the supporter of the rights of humanity, the 
ally and friend of the American people." A 
strange fate met this ''supporter of the rights 
of humanity " a few years later on the Place 
de la Revolution. 

This early significant use of the number 
thirteen was the subject of a brilliant Tory 
sarcasm at the time. The Lampoon states: 
''Thirteen is a number peculiarly belonging to 
the rebels. A party of naval prisoners, lately 
returned from Jersey, say that the rations 
among the rebels are thirteen dried clams per 
day; that the titular Lord Stirling takes thirteen 
glasses of grog every morning, has thirteen 
enormous rum bunches on his nose, and that 
(when duly impregnated) he always makes thir- 
teen attempts before he can walk. That Mr. 



The Somerset Hills. 57 

Washington has thirteen toes on his feet (the 
extra ones having grown since the Declaration of 
Independence) and the same number of teeth 
in each jaw . . . that a well organized rebel 
household has thirteen children, all of whom 
expect to be generals and members of the 
High and Mighty Congress of the Thirteen 
United States when they attain thirteen." 

General Knox writes to his brother of the 
event with great pride: 

"We had at the Park on the eighteenth," 
he says, *'a most genteel entertainment given 
by self and officers — everybody allows it to be 
the first of the kind ever exhibited in this 
State, at least: We had about seventy ladies — 
all the first ton in the State — we danced all 
night — between three and four hundred gen- 
tlemen — an elegant room — the illuminating fire- 
works, etc., were more than pretty." 

A correspondent to the Pennsylvania Packet 
of March 6th gives a detailed account of the 



58 The Somerset Hills. 



celebration and concludes with the following 
tribute to the women of the period: 

**Is it that the women of New Jersey, by 
holding the space between two large cities, 
have continued exempt from the corruptions 
of either, and preserved a purity of manners 
superior to both ? Or have I paid too great 
attention to their charms and too little to 
those imperfections which observers tell me 
are the natural growth of every soil ? " 

It was doubtless a brilliant company that 
danced in the academy that night. The event 
stood in bold relief against the inactive and 
troubled social life of the preceding years. 
General Washington himself, with Mrs. Knox, 
opened the ball. Mrs. Washington, Lady Stirl- 
ing, Mrs. Greene and others received the guests. 
And there was William Duer, Englishman, 
West-Indian, New Yorker, ex-member of Con- 
gress, and army officer, come to dance with 
his fiancee, Lady Kitty Stirling. 



The Somerset Hills. 59 



Among the guests was the distinguished 
Henry Laurens, late president of Congress, who 
was soon to be a prisoner in England while 
his son. Col. John Laurens, was doing such 
valuable service in bringing about the active 
co-operation of the French. Exasperated with 
the dalliance of the French ministers. Colonel 
Laurens resorted to an argument with Count 
de Vergennes which was irresistible. ''The 
sword which I now wear in the defence of 
France as well as of my own country," he 
said, *M may be compelled in a short time 
to draw against France as a British subject, 
unless the succor I solicit is immediately ac- 
corded." 

The sojourn of General and Mrs. Knox in 
Pluckamin closed in gloom. A tombstone in 
the graveyard of the Bedminster Church tells 
part of the story. The inscription reads : 

''Under this stone are deposited the Remains 
of Julia Knox, an infant who died on the second 



6o The Somerset Hills. 



of July, 1779. She was the second daughter 
of Henry and Lucy Knox, of Boston in New 
England." 

The Consistory of the Dutch Reformed Church 
refused to allow the child to be buried in 
the churchyard, because the Knoxes were not 
of their faith. But Jacobus Van der Veer, Gen- 
eral Knox's host, invited him to bury the infant 
in the field adjoining the graveyard, where 
his own daughter was buried, for a still 
more brutal reason. She had died insane — 
"possessed of the devil" — and therefore should 
not have Christian burial. Years afterwards 
the field was included in the churchyard, but 
the incidents are sorry illustrations of the re- 
ligious intolerance of the day. 

With the breaking up of General Knox's 
camp, the important revolutionary incidents of 
the village come to a close. EofTs tavern 
continued to be a convenient half-way house, 
and a detachment of the Continental troops. 



The Somerset Hills. 6i 

with our French allies under Lafayette, passed 
through in 1781 on the hurried march to 
Yorktown. With the return of peace the 
village returned to the even tenor of its 
way — which, it would seem, has scarcely been 
interrupted since. 



62 The Somerset Hills. 



V. 

BERNARDSVILLE. 

Bernards Township and Bernardsville prob- 
ably commemorate one of the royal governors 
of the province, Sir Francis Bernard, who was 
appointed in 1758. He was a popular gov- 
ernor, and when he was transferred to Massa- 
chusetts in 1760 by the home government, the 
regret was general. His administration of that 
province was less happy. It was he who in- 
troduced the royal troops to the city of Boston, 
prorogued the Colonial Assembly for refusing 
to vote supplies for their support, and so con- 
tributed to the volume of grievances that led 
to the Revolution. 

Governor Franklin, of New Jersey, writing to 
his father, Benjamin Franklin, from Burlington 
in 1769, says: 

''The Boston writers' have attacked Gov- 




Sir Francis Bernard 



The Somerset Hills. 63 



ernor Bernard on his letters and on his being 
created a baronet. They worry him so much 
that I suppose he will not choose to stay 
much longer among them. There is a talk 
that a new governor is shortly to be appointed. 
Many of the principal people there wish you 
to be the man, and say you would meet 
with no opposition from any party, but would 
soon be able to conciliate all differences." 

The old name of the village was Vealtown, 
and the old Vealtown Inn, known as Bullion's 
Tavern, is frequently mentioned in Revolution- 
ary annals. It occupied the site of the present 
stone tavern in the village. While the scene 
of no distinguishing event, Bernardsville was 
frequently the halting or camping place of 
officers and troops in their crossing and re- 
crossing of New Jersey. After the disastrous 
battle of Long Island in August, 1776, Gen- 
eral Lee was extremely dilatory if not posi- 
tively disobedient in following the Commander- 



64 The Somerset Hills. 

in-chief in retreat across New Jersey. On the 
twelfth of December, his command camped 
for the night in Bernardsville. Lee, however, 
temporarily transferred his command to Gen- 
eral Sullivan, and, "governed by some freak 
or whim, or still baser passion," put up for the 
night at Mrs. White's Tavern at Basking Ridge. 
The story of his capture by the British the 
following day is told more in detail in the note 
on Basking Ridge. 

A month later Bernardsville again saw the 
Continental troops. This time, however, not in 
disheartening retreat, but flushed with the great 
strategic and actual victories of Trenton and 
Princeton. After the battle of Princeton, early in 
1777, the first halt made by Washington and his 
army on the way to Morristown was at Plucka- 
min. From thence, after a few days' sojourn, he 
proceeded through Bernardsville and New Ver- 
non, making his winter headquarters at the 
Arnold Tavern on the Morristown "Green." 



The Somerset Hills. 65 



Early in 1781 the tavern at Vealtown was 
the scene of a little army diplomacy. During 
that winter the Pennsylvania line under com- 
mand of General Wayne went into winter 
quarters on Kimball Hill near Morristown. It 
would seem that the condition of the troops 
was but little better than during the mem- 
orable winter at Valley Forge. 

''The men," wrote General Wayne, ''are 
poorly clothed, badly fed and worse paid, 
some of them not having received a paper 
dollar for near twelve months; exposed to 
winter's piercing cold, to drifting snows, and 
chilling blasts, with no protection but old 
worn-out coats, tattered linen overalls, and 
but one blanket between three men." Small 
wonder they mutinied. They were devoted to 
their cause and to General Wayne, but he was 
quite unable to restrain them. So thirteen 
hundred withdrew from camp intent on march- 
ing to Philadelphia to present their claims to 



66 The Somerset Hills. 



Congress. Their first halt for the night was 
at Vealtown and here Wayne followed them, 
meeting the non-commissioned officers of the 
mutineers in Bullion's tavern. The result of 
the conference was a compromise. General 
Wayne despatched a courier to Congress stating 
their grievances and claims, and Congress 
promptly sent a committee to confer with 
them. They met the mutineers at Princeton, 
relieved their necessities, granted the justice 
of their claims, and sent them back to camp. 
Meanwhile an incident had taken place that 
proved they were no traitors, though in a state 
of mutiny. Emissaries from General Clinton 
met them, offering generous terms to join 
the King's troops. But Clinton had reckoned 
without his host. The emissaries were 
promptly seized as spies and turned over to 
the custody of General Wayne, to whose 
command the mutineers themselves soon re- 
turned. General Wayne's sobriquet of ''Mad 



The Somerset Hills. 67 

Anthony" was changed to ** Dandy Andy" in 
New Jersey, where he was extremely popular. 
The sobriquet grew out of his gentlemanly sol- 
dierly appearance and fastidiousness in dress. 

The camp at Kimball Hill and various 
events in this and the preceding seasons fur- 
nish the materials for Bret Harte's pretty Rev- 
olutionary story, *' Thankful Blossom." The 
house of the heroine was on one of the main 
roads leading from Kimball Hill to Vealtown. 

When, in August, 1781, Washington boldly 
decided to cross the Hudson and unite with 
Lafayette and the French fleet in Virginia, 
the allied armies crossed New Jersey by different 
routes in four divisions. 

The two divisions of our French allies lay 
at Whippany, Morris County, over night on 
August 28th. The first division camped at 
Bullion's Tavern, Bernardsville, the following 
night, and the next day pushed on to Mill- 
stone. On the 30th, the second division fol- 



68 The Somerset Hills. 

lowed from Whippany, and they too camped 
at Bernardsville for the night, following the 
first in their southern course, one day later. 
The journal of the commissary of the French 
army records: "The road which I took to 
reach Bullion's Tavern is not disagreeable, 
but the farms are still middling, they were 
sown with maize and buckwheat; I also saw 
a little hemp there." 

The appearance of the soldiers of his Christian 
Majesty Louis XVI., well drilled and in natty 
uniforms, must have been in striking con- 
trast to the ill-fed and half-clothed troops 
that passed through the village five years 
earlier after the defeat at Long Island. Then 
there had been no considerable victory over 
the royal forces. Now there was the memory 
of Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth in New 
Jersey; of the capture of Burgoyne in New 
York. Then the Colonies were fighting single- 
handed; now they held the active and moral 



The Somerset Hills. 69 



support of a powerful ally — the hereditary 
enemy of the British. 

With this memorable march across the Jerseys, 
the Revolutionary memories of Bernardsville 
close; for the final victory at Yorktown fol- 
lowed two months later. 

Perhaps the most interesting historic house 
architecturally is the old Kirkpatrick home- 
stead on the Mine Brook road. It is built of 
stone, two stories in height, in a severe and 
dignified style which the present owner has 
had the good taste to preserve and copy in 
all restorations and extensions. On a stone 
over the doorway are chiselled the initials 
D. M. K., 1765. The initials stand for David 
and Mary Kirkpatrick, the sturdy Scotch emi- 
grants who built the house, whose son 
Andrew was a distinguished Chief-Justice of 
the State (1803- 1824). 



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The Somerset Hills. 71 



VI. 
BASKING RIDGE* 

Several existing records place the earliest 
settlement of Basking Ridge ** about the year 
1700." It is quite possible that squatters may- 
have been settled in the vicinity as early as 
1700, for in the transactions of the regular 
sale and deeding of the land there are sundry 
references to trouble in dispossessing the 
squatters. But inasmuch as the date of the 
purchase of a tract of some three thousand 
acres, including the site of the present village, 
is dated June 24th, 1717, the latter may be 
considered the date of the historic beginning 
of the village. 

The purchase was made from an Indian chief 
named Nowenoik by one John Harrison, agent 
of the East Jersey Proprietors, the price paid 
being about fifty dollars. The tract extended 



72 The Somerset Hills. 

east to the Passaic River at Millington and 
south to the Dead River. It was known as 
Harrison's Neck and was sold a few years 
later to four men, namely : Daniel Hollingshead, 
George Rissearick, Col. John Parker, of Amboy, 
and James Alexander, surveyor-general of the 
provinces of New York and New Jersey. 

These gentlemen had it regularly surveyed 
in 1727 and laid out in farms of one hundred 
and fifty to two hundred acres each. These 
were then drawn for in lots, the lot to the 
northeast of the village having fallen to James 
Alexander, the surveyor-general of the province. 

The name of the village is variously spelled — 
Baskinridge, Baskenridge, Basken Ridge, etc. — 
in published and written documents, during the 
first century of its existence. In the loose 
orthography of the period, this is nothing un- 
usual, but in the earliest authentic documents 
the word appears in its present form. This 
seems to indicate a purely English origin for 



The Somerset Hills. 73 



the name, the local tradition being that the 
Ridge was a place of resort for the wild animals 
to bask in the sun. 

A log meeting house was erected on the site 
of the present Presbyterian Church some time 
between the years 1725- 1730. This was super- 
seded by a larger frame building in 1749. The 
earliest burial discoverable from the gravestones 
is dated 1736. But by 1740 Basking Ridge 
must have been the centre of a considerable 
and vigorous community. In that year the 
village was visited by the great English evan- 
gelist, George Whitefield, who himself recorded 
the visit in the following terms: 

"When I came to Basking Ridge I found that 
Mr. Davenport had been preaching to the con- 
gregation. It consisted of about three thousand 
people. In prayer I perceived my soul drawn 
out and a stirring of affection among the peo- 
ple. I had not discoursed long, but in every 
part of the congregation, somebody or other 



I ■ ■ - I .1 



74 The Somerset Hills. 



began to cry out, and almost all were melted 
to tears." 

This was the period known in the religious 
annals as The Great Awakening. They were 
days of fervent, genuine piety, even though 
marred by Puritan narrowness and intolerance. 
The spirit of the Puritan petition to parliament 
still obtained. "The service of God," that peti- 
tion records, "is grievously abused by piping 
with organ singing and trowling of psalms from 
one side of the choir to another, with the squeak- 
ing of chanting choristers disguised in white 
surplices, some in corner caps and silly copes." 
There was no organ and no choir in the village 
church at this period. The doleful hymns of 
the day were "lined out" by the pastor or a 
deacon, then sung by the congregation. The 
churches were cheerless and plain; in winter 
unheated, and the customary sermon, morning 
and afternoon, was one hour in length timed 
by an hour-glass. It is recorded of one Puritan 



The Somerset Hills. 75 



preacher that he could rarely confine himself 
within the hour limit. When the sand had 
run out he would turn over the hour-glass 
deliberately and say: ''Brethren, let us take 
another glass." 

In 1 75 1, the Rev. Dr. Kennedy was appointed 
to the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church, 
and soon after established a classical school of 
considerable repute throughout the State. He 
was a Scotchman, a graduate of the University 
of Edinburgh, a Doctor of Medicine, and an all- 
around gentleman of culture. He died in 1786, 
and was buried in the churchyard. The present 
church structure, the third on the site, was 
erected in 1838. 

At the outbreak of the Revolution, a culti- 
vated society already existed in Basking Ridge 
and the surrounding Somerset Hills. Lord 
Stirling had made his summer home here a per- 
manent residence. The distinguished Southard 
family were his neighbors. John Morton, of 



76 The Somerset Hills. 



New York, had recently settled here in an 
attractive and well-furnished homestead. This 
society was soon augmented by exiles of 
prominence from New York and elsewhere, 
who found comparative security in these hills. 
Elias Boudinot, of Elizabeth, who as president 
of Congress signed the final Treaty of Peace 
with Great Britain, had placed his family in 
two farmhouses near the village. When Gov- 
ernor Livingston was obliged to abandon his 
home in Elizabethtown, Liberty Hall, his family 
was sent to Basking Ridge and were the guests 
of his brother-in-law. Lord Stirling, at The 
Buildings. 

The capture 01 General Lee in the early period 
of the war was the beginning of a series of 
Revolutionary associations with the village. 

For nearly a hundred years the measure of 
this adventurer's guilt was a subject of dispute, 
but thorough investigation leaves no doubt on 
that subject. Lee, who was second in com- 




c 

> 

H 

(A 



CO 



The Somerset Hills. 77 

mand, coveted the post of commander-in-chief. 
After the battle of Long Island and the series 
of subsequent disasters, he was extremely 
dilatory in following Washington into Pennsyl- 
vania, hoping, it is charged, that with his small 
force some new disaster would befall him, and 
thus place his covetous second first in com- 
mand. On the 1 2th of December, 1776, Lee 
arrived in Bernardsville, where the army camped 
for the night. He, however, moved on to more 
comfortable quarters in Mrs. White's tavern in 
Basking Ridge, leaving the army in charge of 
General Sullivan. The following morning a 
party of thirty British dragoons, under Colonel 
Harcourt, suddenly appeared, surrounded the 
house, captured him, and carried him off to the 
British lines at New Brunswick, some eighteen 
miles distant, where, clothed only in dressing 
gown and slippers, the crestfallen would-be 
commander-in-chief created no little merriment. 
At the time, the capture of General Lee was 



78 The Somerset Hills. 



counted another addition to a long series of 
disasters. It was, 'indeed, the darkest period 
of the war. But we know better now. The 
capture left General Sullivan in command of 
Lee's division, which promptly joined Wash- 
ington in Pennsylvania, and made possible the 
most brilliant strategic feat of the war— the 
capture of the Hessians at Trenton and the 
victory of Princeton. And we know now, too, 
that at the very moment of Lee's capture, he 
had but signed the following letter to General 
Gates : 

Basking Ridge, Dec'r ye 13th, 1776. 

My Dr Gates: 

The ingenious maneuvre of Fort Washington 
has unhinged the goodly fabric we had been 
building. There never was so damned a stroke 
entre nous a certain great man is most damn- 
ably deficient. He has thrown me into a 
situation where I have my choice of difficulties, 



The Somerset Hills. 79 



If I stay in this province I risk myself and 
army, and if I do not stay, the province is lost 
forever. . . . Our counsels have been weak to 
the last degree. As to yourself, if you think 
you can be in time to aid the General, I would 
have you by all means go. You will at least 
save your army. . . . Adieu my dear friend. 
God bless you. 

In "Janice Meredith," his romance of the Rev- 
olution, Mr. Paul Leicester Ford makes the cap- 
ture of Lee a conspicuous episode. With sub- 
stantial fidelity to facts, he gives a realizing 
picture of the tavern of the day, its keeper and 
patrons, and above all of the covetous, arrogant 
General Lee on that wintry December morn- 
ing in 1776. We see the cursing, crestfallen 
captive within the British lines at New Bruns- 
wick, and from thence forwarded to Cornwallis 
at Princeton. 

There were great festivities in the village on 
July 27, 1779. The occasion was the marriage 



8o The Somerset Hills. 



of Lady Kitty Stirling to Col. Wm. Duer, of 
the Continental army. The ceremony took 
place on the lawn in front of The Buildings, 
"under a cedar tree," so the local tradition 
states. It brought together a large and brilliant 
company, including many army officers. A 
barbecued ox and wine without stint furnished 
refreshment. The bridegroom is described by 
Judge Jones, the Tory historian of the period, 
as "William Duer, a West Indian, settled in 
the province of New York for several years, 
as great a rebel as ever lived." 

Colonel Duer was, in fact, a native of Devon- 
shire, England, though his early life was spent 
in the West Indies. After the war, he lived 
in great state in New York City, but in 1792 
his reckless speculations precipitated the first 
great financial panic known to New York. 

The Duers were conspicuous during the period 
of social reconstruction in New York City fol- 
lowing the war. In* the "Republican Court" 



The Somerset Hills. 8i 



which succeeded the Provincial court circle, 
they naturally occupied the prominent place to 
which their birth, breeding, and the public ser- 
vices of their respective families entitled them. 
That Lady Kitty Duer had all the graces and 
accomplishments tradition attributes to her is 
attested by the existence of her letters which 
are models of graceful elegance. In the sum- 
mer of 1778 the Countess of Stirling and Lady 
Kitty visited Mrs. Robert Watts, Lord Stirling's 
elder daughter, in New York City. This was 
by special permission of Sir Henry Clinton, the 
commandant, during the British occupation. 
In a letter to her father on her return, Lady 
Kitty writes: 

" I have made several attempts to obey an in- 
junction laid upon me by my dear papa, in a 
letter to General Maxwell, but have always 
been interrupted, or entirely prevented, by trivial 
accidents, which, though important enough to 
prevent my writing, are scarce worth mention- 



82 The Somerset Hills. 



ing to you; Colonel Livingston going to camp, 
at last furnishes me with an opportunity of 
acquainting you with everything my memory 
retains of our jaunt to New York. 

"In the first place we had the satisfaction of 
being treated civilly by the British officers. 
One indignity indeed we received from General 
Grant, who ordered a sergeant to conduct the 
flag to town, instead of an officer; but we 
were so happy at getting permission to go on 
that we readily excused his want of politeness. 
Our acquaintances in town were very polite to 
us: many, indeed, were remarkably attentive; 
but whether it proceeded from regard to them- 
selves, or us, is hard to determine. The truth 
is, they are a good deal alarmed at their situa- 
tion, and wish to make as much interest as 
possible on our side. The sentiments, I really 
believe, of a great number, have undergone a 
thorough change, since they have been with 
the British army; as they have many oppor- 



The Somerset Hills. 83 



tunities of seeing flagrant acts of injustice and 
cruelty which they could not have believed their 
friends capable of if they had not been eye 
witnesses of their conduct. This convinces 
them that if they conquer, we must live in 
abject slavery. 

"Mamma has, I suppose, mentioned to you 
the distressed situation in which we found 
poor Mary. The alarms of the fire and of the 
explosion, added to her recent misfortune, kept 
her for several days in a very weak state ; but 
we had the satisfaction to leave her perfectly 

* 

recovered. The child she now has is one of 
the most charming little creatures I ever saw, 
and by all accounts is more likely to live than 
either of the others. Mr. Watts, I am happy 
to find, is among the number of those who 
are heartily sick of British tyranny; and as to 
Mary, her political principles are perfectly 
rebellious. Several gentlemen of your former 
acquaintance in the British army made par- 



84 The Somerset Hills. 



ticular inquiries after you. Col. Cosmo Gor- 
don, brother of the Duchess, was very desirous 
of making acquaintance with us on your 
account, but we happened, unfortunately, to be 
abroad whenever he called upon us. The 
Chief Justice, Lord Drummond, Mr. Barrow and 
several others begged to be remembered to 
you. Lord Drummond is very anxious to have 
his character cleared with respect to his parole: 
he says you know the circumstances, and 
wishes you would persuade the General to 
take the matter into consideration. I believe 
his lordship would be very happy to become 
an American subject if the British parliament 
would condescend to accede to our independ- 
ence, and he is therefore very solicitous to 
secure our good graces. 

''Upon the whole, I think we may call our 
jaunt a very agreeable one, though it was 
checkered by some unlucky circumstances. 
For my own part, I liked it so well that I 



The Somerset Hills. 85 

could wish to repeat it in a few months if 
my sister does not get permission to pay us 
a visit. I left mamma very well two days 
ago to pay a visit to the Governor's family, 
who sent the Colonel with an absolute com- 
mand to fetch me. They all beg to be re- 
membered to you." 

This letter is dated ''Parsippany, August, 
1778," whither Lady Kitty had gone, it will 
be observed, to visit her uncle. Governor Liv- 
ingston. 

During the winter of 1779-80, Washington 
and his army were encamped at Morristown 
for the second time. In February General 
Greene's division was moved to Basking Ridge, 
where it remained until the opening of the next 
campaign. During this season smallpox again 
broke out in camp, and a hospital was es- 
tablished for isolating and treating the victims. 
This was located on the road between the 
village and the Stirling estate, well back from 



86 The Somerset Hills. 



the highway. The foundation of the old farm- 
house, which was the nucleus of the hospital, 
still exists, and human bones have been un- 
earthed in the vicinity. General Greene's 
headquarters were at The Buildings, the home 
of his companion in arms, Lord Stirling. At 
the same time Governor Livingston's wife and 
daughter were also guests of Lady Stirling. 
We have a hint of the social refinement at 
The Buildings in a private letter of General 
Greene to his wife. Referring to the Misses 
Livingston, he writes: 

"They are three young ladies of distin- 
guished merit, sensible, polite and easy. 
Their manners are soft and engaging; they 
wish to see you here and I wish it too, but 
I expect long before that happy moment to 
be on the march towards Philadelphia." 

In August, 1 78 1, the village was gay with 
the passing French and Continental troops en 
route for Yorktown. Washington's pretended 



J-^/u^V 




V 

'Ji 

o 

S-i 

O 






C/3 



o 



C/5 



The Somerset Hills. 87 

menace of New York concealed his brilliant 
strategy, and almost before Sir Henry Clinton 
was aware of his design, the body of the 
Continental army and the French allies were 
well on their way to Virginia, there to co-oper- 
ate with the French fleet which had just 
arrived. The army marched in several divis- 
ions by different routes. Washington chose 
the route across New Jersey by way of 
Pompton, Morristown, Basking Ridge, Plucka- 
min, etc. With him were two thousand 
Continentals, General Knox and some artillery, 
and Count Rochambeau with a division of 
the French toops, including his favourite regi- 
ment of Bourbonnois. The latter were partic- 
ularly conspicuous for their brilliant uniforms, 
trim appearance, and military efficiency. The 
column halted at Basking Ridge and Bernards- 
ville. The French officers were entertained 
by Mr. John Morton, who lived near the 
village church. Living with the Mortons were 



88 The Somerset Hills. 



Mrs. Morton's parents who were natives of 
Germany. They utterly refused to meet the 
hereditary foes of their native land, protest- 
ing that no good could possibly come to 
America from a French alliance. The halt was 
brief, and, doubtless, the progress of the French 
troops south continued to excite the interest 
and admiration of the countryside. 

The Revolutionary annals of the village may 
fitly be concluded with a sketch of William 
Alexander, titular Earl of Stirling, Major-General 
in the Continental army. His father was James 
Alexander, engineer in the Jacobite uprising 
known as ''The '15." This failure to restore 
the "Pretender" to the throne of his father 
led James Alexander and some of his asso- 
ciates to avoid embarrassments by escaping 
to America. He came well recommended, 
however, and in 17 16, the year after his 
arrival in New York, he was appointed Sur- 
veyor-General of the* Provinces of New York 



The Somerset Hills. 89 



and New Jersey, a post which he held until 
his death forty years later. He studied law 
and was admitted to the provincial bar, where 
he soon rose to eminence. He appeared in 
defence of John Peter Zenger in the famous 
libel case in 1735 — thirty-five years earlier 
than the same principle agitated all England 
by the publication of the "Letters of Junius." 
He was a member of the Governor's Coun- 
cil, a member of the Board of Proprietors of 
East Jersey, and one of the founders of ''The 
American Philosophical Society." Thus, sur- 
veyor-general, lawyer, statesman, scientist, the 
career of the sometime engineer-officer in the 
ranks of the Old Pretender is an early illustra- 
tion of the truism that America is another 
name for opportunity. In 1721 he married 
the widow of one Samuel Provost. He died 
in 1756, leaving to his widow and five 
children a large landed estate, including a tract 
of some seven hundred acres at Basking Ridge. 



90 The Somerset Hills. 

In the division of the estate, this fell to 
his only son, William Alexander, known in 
American history as Lord Stirling. 

The career of William Alexander, titular Earl 
of Stirling, is an interesting page from the 
romances of the British peerage. He was 
born in New York City in 1726, educated in 
the best schools of his day, his father instruct- 
ing him in mathematics and surveying. He 
entered business life at an early age, first as 
clerk, then as co-partner in the provision 
business his mother inherited from her first 
husband. 

In the course of their trade, they took con- 
tracts for supplying the King's troops with 
clothing and provisions in the French and 
Indian War. He soon attracted the attention 
of the Commander-in-Chief, Governor Shirley, 
who invited him to join his personal staff, 
and eventually appointed him his private sec- 
retary. When, in 1756, Governor Shirley was 



The Somerset Hills. 91 



summoned to England for trial, Alexander 
accompanied him as a witness, and his testi- 
mony contributed materially to the vindica- 
tion of the character of Governor Shirley. 

William Alexander remained in England five 
years, during which time he presented and 
prosecuted his claims, first to the title, and 
then to a portion of the estate of the Earl of 
Stirling. 

When Henry, fifth Earl of Stirling, died in 1739, 
the next in succession to the title was one Dr. 
William Alexander, who had settled in Jamaica, 
Long Island. Dr. Alexander was a nephew of 
James Alexander of New York, and the uncle 
urged the nephew to present his claims. This 
he refused to do, and when he died childless, 
in 1747, James Alexander fell heir to the title. 
It was his purpose to present his claim to the 
title, but public and private affairs prevented 
his departure for Scotland from year to year, 
and the claim was not entered and prosecuted 



92 The Somerset Hills. 

until after his death, when his son William 
went abroad for that purpose. 

The earldom of Stirling was not an ancient 
dignity, but the origin and history of the house 
are of extraordinary interest. The founder of the 
house was William Alexander (1580- 1640), the 
court poet of the reigns of James I. and 
Charles I. These monarchs created him suc- 
cessively Lord Alexander of TuUibrodie, Vis- 
count of Canada, Earl of Stirling, and Earl of 
Dovan. Along with these titles came huge 
gifts of land in Nova Scotia, Canada, a ''tract 
of Maine," and Long Island. To these were 
added great political and administrative pow- 
ers, among which was the power of creating 
one hundred and fifty baronets. As a matter 
of fact many English baronets to-day hold their 
titles from patents granted by the first Earl of 
Stirling. When, however, the fifth Earl of 
Stirling died, the American estates had van- 
ished, but it was the purpose of William 



The Somerset Hills 93 

Alexander to try to recover the title to some 
portion of them, along with the dignity. 

William Alexander proved his claim to 
the title according to Scotch law, and since 
the claim was for a Scotch peerage, this would 
seem to settle the matter. But some of his 
friends persuaded him to present his claim to 
the House of Lords, not as a necessary meas- 
ure, but as a matter of courtesy to that 
august body. The decision by the House of 
Lords was not reached until after his return 
to America, when they decided the claim 
could not be allowed because he had failed 
to show that heirs in a direct line were 
extinct. 

He had assumed the title of Earl of Stirl- 
ing when the Scotch court reached the de- 
cision in his favour, and continued to be known 
as such in public and private life to the day 
of his death. But with all his apparent vanity, 
there was no uncertain note in his politics 



94 The Somerset Hills. 



when it became necessary to take issue in 
the events that led to the Revolution. 

On his return to America, he disposed of 
his mercantile interests in New York City and 
began the work of developing the landed es- 
tate at Basking Ridge, which he had inherited 
from his father. He built thereon a summer 
residence, which after a few years became his 
permanent residence. 

Smith's "History of New Jersey," published 
in 1765, has the following reference to it: 

"Here also at Basken-Ridge, is the seat of 
William Alexander, Earl of Stirling; his im- 
provements for taste and expense promise 
more than anything of the kind hitherto 
effected in the Province." 

In 1748, he had married Sarah Livingston, 
a sister of the Governor Livingston who was 
to succeed the last royal governor of New 
Jersey. 

Meanwhile he continued to be active in 



The Somerset Hills. 95 



public life as Surveyor-General of the Province 
and member of the Provincial Council. In the 
latter capacity, he was summoned to Bur- 
lington by Governor Franklin in November, 
1765, to consider the Stamp Act. He was 
detained in Basking Ridge by illness, but 
wrote the Governor his sentiments on the 
subject. Like many another man of the day, 
he refused to consider the Stamp Act a de- 
liberate measure on the part of the ministry, 
believing it to be a mere blunder, which 
would be repealed as soon as recognized. 

At no time in the course of the events 
that led to the Declaration of Independence 
was his judgment obscured or his course 
vacillating. He was still a member of the 
King's Council, and on terms of friendly in- 
timacy with Governor Franklin when the first 
Revolutionary Congress appointed him to com- 
mand the First New Jersey Battalion. 

His prompt acceptance and vigorous organi- 



96 The Somerset Hills. 



zation of the same led to his dismissal from 
the Board until the King's pleasure should 
be known. When, however, the Provincial 
Congress deposed Governor Franklin, the last 
royal Governor of New Jersey, it became 
the duty of his old friend and associate, 
Lord Stirling, to arrest and imprison him. He 
was soon released on parole, and at the close 
of the war retired to England, where he died 
in 1815. 

The career of Major-General the Earl of 
Stirling, as he was officially designated, in the 
course of the Revolutionary struggle, is well 
known. His bold attack and capture of a 
British man-of-war laden with provisions in 
New York Harbour in January, 1776; his 
gallant and able service in the Battle of Long 
Island; his services at Brandy wine Creek, 
Germantown, and Monmouth; his timely ser- 
vices in exposing the Conway cabal and thus 
preserving to the • army its Commander-in- 



The Somerset Hills. 97 

chief ; his lamented death in Albany, in January, 
1783, while in charge of the Northern Depart- 
ment awaiting definite terms of peace — all 
these are matters of public history. 

There is but little difference of opinion 
from the American point of view on the sub- 
ject of his public life. Judge Jones, the Tory 
historian of New York during the Revolution, 
presents quite a different viewpoint. He 
quotes with great satisfaction a reference to 
Lord Stirling by the Marquis de Chastellux, 
a member of the personal staff of Count de 
Rochambeau, who made a tour of the rebel 
colonies during the war, and, like many a 
later traveller, ''wrote us up." The Marquis 
writes: ** His birth, title, and property have 
given him more influence in America than 
his talents could ever have acquired him. 
The title of 'Lord' which was refused him 
in England is not here contested. He is ac- 
cused of loving the table and the bottle as 



98 The Somerset Hills. 



becomes a 'Lord' but more by far than be- 
comes a General." 

His fondness for his title was sometimes the 
subject of jokes, at his expense, even among 
his friends. On one occasion, when a soldier 
was about to be executed for desertion, the 
criminal called out in terror, ''Lord have mercy 
on me!" Lord Stirling, who chanced to be in 
that vicinity, replied with warmth: "I won't, 
you rascal! I won't have mercy on you." 

With the death of Lord Stirling the family 
disappears from the active life of the village 
of Basking Ridge. His estate, owing to his 
extravagance and the depreciation of the Con- 
tinental currency, was so deeply involved that 
he died practically bankrupt. The Basking 
Ridge estate passed out of the family, and 
the splendours of The Buildings were soon 
tarnished by time and neglect. What is at 
once the most authentic and realizing picture 
of the elegance and refinement of the home 



The Somerset Hills. 99 

of this American nobleman is from the memoirs 
of Mrs. Quincy, wife of a former president 
of Harvard College. Her father, Mr. John 
Morton, lived near the Stirling estate, and 
during her girlhood she knew the family 
intimately. She writes: 

''The seat of Lord Stirling, called by the 
country people The Buildings, was two miles 
distant. Designed to imitate the residence of 
an English nobleman, it was unfinished when 
the war began. The stables, coach houses, and 
other offices, ornamented with cupolas and 
gilded vanes, were built round a large paved 
court behind the mansion. 

'* The front with piazza opened on a fine 
lawn descending to a considerable stream 
called the Black River. A large hall extended 
through the centre of the house. On one side 
was a drawing-room with painted walls and 
stuccoed ceiling. Being taken there while a 
child, my imagination was struck with a style 



LofC. 



loo The Somerset Hills. 



and splendour so different from all around. 
The daughters of Lord Stirling, called Lady 
Mary and Lady Kitty, afterwards Mrs. Watts 
and Mrs. Duer, the Miss Livingstons, afterwards 
Mrs. Kane and Mrs. Otto, and other cultivated 
and elegant women domesticated in the family, 
made an impression I can never forget, for 
they were all very pleasing and kind to me. 
Ten years afterwards I again visited The Build- 
ings, but what a change had taken place! 
The family had removed, the house was 
tenanted by a farmer, and the hall and elegant 
drawing-room, converted into granaries, were 
filled with corn and wheat, and the paved 
courtyard with pigs and poultry. 

"The stables and coach house were going to 
ruin, and through the door of the latter, which 
was falling off the hinges, I saw the state 
coach of the fashion of Sir Charles Grandi- 
son's day. It was ornamented with gilded 
coronets and coats-of-arms blazoned on the 




tp^^^-i^ 



^U-^r^J^^ 



rr/a. 




e. — . 



^i>7-^- 



The Somerset Hills. loi 



panels, and fowls were perching and roosting 
upon it." 

Lord Stirling was buried in the Livingston 
vault in the old Dutch Church in Albany. When 
the church was demolished in 1808, the remains 
were moved to the Protestant Episcopal bury- 
ing ground on State Street. In 1868 the grave- 
yard was included in a public park and the 
bodies removed to the Albany Rural Cemetery. 
Here, it seems probable, rest the bones of 
Major-General the Earl of Stirling in an un- 
marked grave; for in the process of removal 
their definite location was lost. ''Our fathers 
find their graves in our short memories, and 
sadly tell us how we may be buried in our 
survivors." 

Other citizens of national reputation belong 
to the Basking Ridge of the next two genera- 
tions. William L. Dayton was born here in 
1807. In the course of his life he served suc- 
cessively in the State Senate, on the bench of 



I02 The Somerset Hills. 



the Supreme Court of the State, in the United 
States Senate, as State attorney, as candidate 
for Vice-President on the Republican ticket of 
1856 along with Gen. John C. Fremont, and 
in 1 86 1 was appointed Minister to the Court of 
France by President Lincoln. He died in Paris 
in 1864 while in charge of this important post. 
The Southard family, already referred to, had 
migrated from Long Island soon after the set- 
tlement of Basking Ridge. Here Henry South- 
ard was born in 1747. He was a member of 
the State legislature for eight years and repre- 
sented his district in Congress for twenty-one 
years. His still more distinguished son, Samuel 
L. Southard, was born here in 1787. He was 
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and was 
elected Governor of the State in 1829. He was 
appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1823, and 
for a time was also Acting Secretary of War 
and Treasury. He served several terms in the 
United States Senate*, of which body he was 



The Somerset Hills. 103 

president in 1841. While in the Senate he 
met his father in a joint committee of the two 
houses — father and son each being chairman 
of his respective committee. When St. Mark's 
Church was erected in 1852, the stone altar 
therein was built by the Southard family as a 
memorial to the Congressman and Senator of 
their family. 

Basking Ridge, no less than Lamington, has 
the tradition of an Indian horror, at least by 
association. The following story, told by an 
aged kinswoman of the heroine, was written 
out many years ago, under title of 

THE LOCUST GROVE. 

Not far from the banks of the Passaic 
River, where the narrowing meadow-lands 
approach the Passaic Water Gap, is a grove 
of locust trees. It is not far from the high- 
road leading to the ancient village of Basking 
Ridge and was once a part of the estate of 



I04 The Somerset Hills. 

Lord Stirling. The surrounding country is 
steeped in the tradition of a past century ; 
across the meadows, some two miles to the 
west, is the stately old mansion which was 
Lord Stirling's home before and during the 
Revolutionary struggle — the trysting-place of 
many men now known to fame, during 
the two winter encampments of the Conti- 
nental army at Morristown. On the crest of 
the ridge that lies to the east of the village 
stands the colonial house in which the too 
ambitious General Lee was captured. The 
church edifice guarding the head of the main 
street is not as ancient as the village, though 
venerable enough to command respect. 

But to return to the Locust Grove. The 
present generation can still remember when 
the solitude of the place was broken only by 
the low of cattle grazing in the meadows, 
the note of Bob White, or the rumbling of 
wagons over the road hard by. Near the 



The Somerset Hills. 105 

centre of the grove is still to be seen the 
remnant of a hearth that was once a home, 
and some fragments of a foundation. A suc- 
cession of old-fashioned flowers here makes 
an annual struggle for existence. Daffodils, 
grape-hyacinths, rockets — each has its season, 
and each season the noiseless encroachments 
of 'tares' rob them of a little of their former 
glory. These, together with some traces of 
a well-sweep, are all that is left of the home 
of 'Old Aunt Polly Kernan.' Here she lived 
in lonely, childless widowhood, well into the 
nineteenth century, surviving the tragedy of 
her life nearly half a century. 

She was married in Basking Ridge several 
years before the outbreak of the Revolution, 
and then went to Cherry Valley in Central 
New York where her husband had purchased 
some land. This was then a frontier region, 
and its proximity to the house of the Six 
Nations resulted in the destruction of the 



io6 The Somerset Hills. 

village and the massacre of the inhabitants 
in the course of the border warfare that added 
to the horrors of the period. In the summer 
of 1778, the country was terrorized by the 
reports of the massacre of Wyoming Valley 
in Northern Pennsylvania. The Tories and 
their Indian allies of New York resorted to 
barbarities scarcely equalled in the earlier 
border warfare. A few months later Cherry 
Valley was similarly raided, and among the 
victims was the pioneer Kernan family. Among 
the Indians was a party of Mohawks, led by 
their chief, the notorious Joseph Brant, the ally 
of his Majesty George III. 

The Kernans lived on the outskirts of the 
village on a secluded farm off the highroad. 
The even tenor of their uneventful lives was 
rudely interrupted towards the close of a quiet 
autumn day in 1778. 

Aunt Polly was busily engaged before the 
great kitchen hearth preparing the evening 



The Somerset Hills. 107 

meal. The children were playing about the 
door waiting for the return of their father and 
the men from the meadows. A wild shriek and 
the alarming cries of the children brought the 
mother to the door, only in time to see two of 
the children scalped by a party of savage 
Indians; the third, a little brown-eyed girl of 
four years, taken roughly into custody, and 
to be herself bound hand and foot and along 
with the little girl put under guard while the 
house was plundered. Meanwhile John Kernan 
returned from the field, and almost before he 
could comprehend the situation, was scalped 
before the eyes of his wife and child, and 
the bloody trophy flaunted in their faces. 

As soon as night set in, the Indians turned 
their backs on the ghastly victims of their ven- 
geance and the home they had desolated and 
began a hurried and stealthy retreat, carrying the 
little girl but compelling the mother to follow 
on foot. 



io8 The Somerset Hills. 



The story of Polly Kernan's life among the 
Indians was never known in detail. Years after 
her capture, when she returned saddened and 
changed, the subject was too painful for dis- 
cussion in her presence. 

This much became known: She was early 
separated from her only surviving child and for 
years was jealously watched by her captors, who 
took her to Western Pennsylvania — the far West 
of that day. She finally succeeded in evading 
the vigilance of her captors sufficiently to con- 
fide her story to an English trader, with whose 
connivance she succeeded in returning to the 
East. Long and weary marching by night, and 
hiding during the day, with many an escape 
that seemed almost miraculous, placed her 
beyond their power. One day she lay concealed 
under a brush heap in a clearing, and her 
benefactor barely succeeded in preventing the 
Indians from firing the brush heap in pursuing 
their work. She eventually found an asylum 



The Somerset Hills. 109 



with a relative near her former home in Basking 
Ridge and immediately began to make efforts to 
trace the wanderings of her daughter, the little 
brown-eyed Mary. 

After years of patient following and of one 
clew after another, she was identified as the 
wife of a chief in the far West. She had lost 
her original identity and had no interests further 
than those of her children, her husband, and 
the tribe with which she had become identified. 
The trader who found her learned that she had 
a vague recollection of a mother, and an early 
home, but she refused to return to either. 

•'The old order changeth, yielding place to 
the new," and the quiet locust grove with its 
succession of old-time flowers and its pathetic 
tradition is to be no exception. Already the 
shriek of the locomotive crashing through the 
woods to the south disturbs the repose of the 
summer days, and bustle of the new life of 
progress is crowding out this significant inci- 



I lO 



The Somerset Hills. 



dent of pioneer days. The passing of the Indian 
would seem to indicate that his mission is 
accomplished. What that mission was in the 
development of the human race is a subject 
beyond the limit of the Somerset Hills. 




The Somerset Hills. 1 1 i 



VII. 
LAMINGTON- 

THE Presbyterian church was organized 
about 1740, and the first regular pastor 
was installed in 1742. This was the Rev. James 
McCrea, who organized the parish and erected 
a manse on the banks of the Peapack River, 
where his children were born. Two of his sons 
were killed in the battle of Saratoga, one was 
killed in a skirmish, and one was a surgeon in 
the army. But the chief interest in the family 
centres about his daughter Jane, whose life 
furnishes a romance of the Revolution, and the 
circumstances of whose tragic death were cited 
with thrilling effect when the great Burke 
arraigned the ministry before the House of 
Commons. 

Jane McCrea, second daughter of Rev. James 
McCrea, and Mary Graham his wife, was born 



112 The Somerset Hills. 



in the Lamington manse in 1753. There was 
an excellent school in the village, from which 
there is a record of at least one student who 
entered the University of Edinburgh. Here Jane 
McCrea received her education along with her 
future lover, one David Jones. 

Her oldest brother John studied law and 
settled in Albany for the practice of his profes- 
sion, and in 1773 purchased a farm on the 
western bank of the Hudson near Fort Miller 
Falls. After the death of her father in 1769 Jane 
made her home with her brother at Albany and 
on the farm. There were other emigrants from 
Lamington settled in that region, among them 
one Mrs. Jones, a widow, and her six sons, one 
of whom, David, was the old schoolmate of 
Jane McCrea at Lamington. 

Before the marriage was consummated, how- 
ever, the war of the Revolution broke out, and 
the home of the McCreas and Joneses became 
the theatre of the series of events connected 



The Somerset Hills. 1 1 3 

with Burgoyne's invasion of Northern New 
York. The McCreas were stanch patriots; 
the Joneses were Tories. So the course of 
true love between the Tory Jones and his 
fiancde ran the traditional course. But affec- 
tions are deeper than political prejudices, and 
secret communications with Lieutenant Jones 
of his Majesty's forces in America led to the 
plan of a clandestine marriage. He was to 
meet her at the house of a mutual friend, a Mrs. 
McNeil, at Fort Edward, on July 27th (1777), 
but the close proximity of the American pickets 
made that impracticable. So he sent her word 
that a band of friendly Indians would meet her 
as near the house as safety would permit and 
conduct her to the British camp where the 
marriage was to take place. On the morning 
of the 27th, while Jane was watching for the 
appearance of her escort, the American troops 
were driven forward by a band of Indians 
under one DeLoup. Six of the band left the 



114 The Somerset Hills. 

pursuit and entered Mrs. McNeil's house, took 
Mrs. McNeil and Jane prisoners and hurried 
them off to a neighbouring hill. Here they 
were met by another band of Indians, those 
sent by Jones to escort his bride to his camp. 
They demanded the release of Jane; her captors 
refused and in a quarrel that ensued, DeLoup 
in a fit of rage turned to Jane McCrea, brutally 
struck her with a tomahawk, "scalped her 
and tossed her flowing hair aloft with a 
fiendish yell of triumph." The next day her 
body was found covered with leaves and brush; 
it was conveyed to the fort, near which it 
was buried the following day by her grief- 
stricken brother. Her lover. Lieutenant Jones, 
saw the bloody scalp in the British camp and 
learned the details of the horror from DeLoup, 
the leader of the band he had sent to escort 
her. 

This is not an isolated instance of Indian 
brutality, but it attained almost international 



The Somerset Hills. 115 

importance as an illustration of the infamous 
policy of the British Government in the Indian 
alliances. The immediate responsibility of the 
deed, as a question of military ethics, has 
never been definitely settled, but the v/illing- 
ness on the part of the British Government 
to employ savages against the colonists cost 
them the loyalty of more than one vacillat- 
ing colonist. 

In his formal protest to General Burgoyne, 
General Gates said: "Miss McCrea, a young 
lady, lovely to the sight, of virtuous character 
and amiable disposition, engaged to an officer 
of your army, was taken out of a house 
near Fort Edward, carried into the woods, 
and there scalped and mangled in a most 
shocking manner. The miserable fate of Miss 
McCrea was particularly aggravated by her 
being dressed to receive her promised husband, 
but met her murderers employed by you." 

During the Revolution, when the British 



1 1 6 The Somerset Hills. 

were in possession of New York, the patriotic 
Rev. Dr. Rodgers, pastor of the First Presby- 
terian Church, found it necessary to leave the 
city, and for a year he ministered to the con- 
gregation at Lamington. In 1778, in conse- 
quence of the British occupation of Phila- 
delphia, the Synod of Philadelphia met in the 
Lamington Church. 

This was before the days of the temperance 
agitation. There is a story of a clergyman 
who was once sent to supply Lamington 
Church, who preached with particular force 
and eloquence. After the morning service, 
as was the custom, the elders gathered about 
him and paid his fee in crisp half-pound notes. 
"Gentlemen," he said, "will you take a walk 
with me.'^" Whereupon they all crossed the 
street to the tavern and took a drink at the 
parson's expense. He handed the barkeeper 
one of the half-pound notes, saying: "Take 
your pay out of that, I just received it for 



The Somerset Hills. 117 

preaching the sermon." Then they all re- 
turned to the church for the afternoon meet- 
ing. A full century before this date, the Vir- 
ginia House of Burgesses had deemed it 
necessary to enact a warning to the clergy- 
men in the following terms: "Mynisters shall 
not give themselves to excesse in drinking 
and ryott." Whether for better or for worse 
is another question. But standards and judg- 
ments have both changed by process of the 
silent years. 



1 1 8 The Somerset Hills. 



VIII. 
MENDHAM, PEAPACK, Etc 

THE village of Mendham is just beyond 
the limits of the Somerset Hills. But 
inasmuch as it was within the original limits 
of the county — Hunterdon and Morris counties 
being both included in the original limits of 
Somerset — it may fairly claim a passing note 
here. In 17 13 a large tract of land, including 
the present site of the village, was purchased 
from the original lords proprietors by one 
James Wills. It was at first called Rocksiticus, 
by which name it was known until shortly 
before the Revolution, when it received the 
name by which it is known at present. 

The early church relations of the Mendham 
pioneers were either with the congregation of 
Basking Ridge, or with that at Morristown, 
first known as West Hanover. But by 1738 



The Somerset Hills. 1 1 9 

there was a separate Presbyterian congrega- 
tion in existence here, and in 1745 the first 
church edifice was erected on the site of the 
present building. As a result of the British 
occupation of New York after the disastrous 
battle of Long Island, in 1776, the Presby- 
terian Synod of New York met in the Mend- 
ham Church. During the winter of 1780-81, 
when a division of the Continental army was 
encamped on the hills extending from Morris- 
town to Washington Corner, near Mendham, 
the church was cleared of its pews and turned 
into a hospital. Some unnamed and un- 
marked graves in the churchyard bear mute 
testimony to the ravages of disease in the 
army hospital during that severe winter. 
Still they could hardly wish ** couch more 
magnificent." For like the martyrs of many 
another struggle for a great principle: 

"On Fame's eternal camping-ground 
Their silent tents are spread; 



I 20 The Somerset Hills. 

And Glory guards in solemn round 
The bivouac of the Dead." 

The Presbyterian congregation in Mendham 
claims to have given some thirty ministers 
to the Church in the course of its existence. 
Among these may be counted the late dis- 
tinguished bishop of Western New York, the 
Rt. Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe. He was born 
in Mendham, the son of the then pastor of 
the Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Dr. Cox, 
distinguished alike as theologian, preacher, and 
wit. Of his family of ten children, five be- 
came members of the Episcopal Church. **How 
many children have you, Dr. Cox.^" he was 
once asked. "Ten" was the prompt reply; 
"Five of them are wise and five of them are 
Episcopalians." 

The village of Peapack records the name 
and location of an Indian trail that crossed 
Northern New Jersey east and west. This 
trail was known as- the Peapack Path and 



The Somerset Hills. 121 

was a well-known landmark. In 1701 a large 
tract of land was conveyed by the proprietors 
to George Willocks and John Johnston. The 
tract was known as the Peapack patent and em- 
braced the site of the present village, which was 
settled soon after this time. George Willocks, 
along with John Harrison, who purchased the 
Basking Ridge tract in 1717, were among the 
founders of the first Church of England parish 
in East Jersey, St. Peter's, Perth Amboy(i698). 
The fact is recorded on a tablet on the walls 
of the present church edifice erected by the 
parish in 1825. \l 

The settlement of Liberty Corner may be 
dated about 1730, the date when the Annin 
family located here, and the place was long 
known as Annin's Corner. It was to all 
intents and purposes a part of Basking Ridge, 
having no church of its own for a hundred 
years. The first regular pastor of the Bask- 
ing Ridge Church, the Rev. John Cross, lived 



122 The Somerset Hills. 

here in the house still standing, and here he 
entertained the Rev. George Whitefield during 
his memorable visit in 1740. There is a 
tradition in the family that Lafayette spent 
the night in this house in the spring of 1780. 
He v^as en route for Morristown on his re- 
turn from his memorable mission to the 
French Court in the interest of the States. 
He is also said to have recalled the fact to 
a member of the Cross family when he re- 
visited this country in 1825. 

Several houses still standing antedate the 
Revolution, notably the old stone house (the 
Annin homestead) and the Cross house already 
mentioned, both to the north of the village. 

The earliest homesteads were established on 
Long Hill and Millington about 1730. The 
highroad over Long Hill was the main 
thoroughfare to Newark by way of New 
Providence (Turkey) and Springfield. 



The Somerset Hills. 123 



IX. 

EPILOGUE* 

NOTHING has been said in the foregoing 
pages of the natural beauties of the 
Somerset hills. These speak for themselves. 
Historic associations may fade, yes, vanish ; 
but the beauties of nature are enduring and 
self-evident. 

The earliest civilizations developed in the 
lowland plains of the great river valleys. This 
is in accordance with the natural law of de- 
velopment along the lines of the least resist- 
ance. The hill country marks the frontier in 
the evolution of all the earlier civilizations. 
The occupation of the hills is a second period 
in the march of progress, the extension of 
empire, the beginning of conquest. Of the 
three great monarchies that successively occu- 
pied the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris 



1 24 The Somerset Hills. 

rivers — Chaldaea, Assyria, and Babylonia — each 
in turn stretched farther inland embracing 
more and more of the hill country. The 
settlement and development of colonies illus- 
trate the same principle. In the settlement 
of the colony of New Jersey, the lower 
courses of her two chief rivers, the Raritan 
and Passaic, were first occupied. For a gen- 
eration or longer, the hill country was a 
natural frontier — the abode of elves and fairies, 
it may be no less than of witches; a land 
full of mystery and beauty — not without its 
dangers and therefore alluring. 

But more than for anything else, the hills 
have stood for a region of refuge and repose. 
We shall not have to search far in Holy Writ 
for illustrations of this. For the great Hebrew 
poet, ''the little hills rejoice on every side," 
and in his despair he exclaims, '*! will lift 
mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh 
my help!" Shakespeare retires the disheart- 



The Somerset Hills. i 25 

ened Henry VI. to a hill, there to await the 
result of the battle of Towton. Here the 
tempest-tossed king reflects: 

"Methinks it were a happy life 
To be no better than a homely swain; 
To sit upon a hill as I do now. . . . 
Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! 

how lovely! 
Gives not the hawthorn brush a sweeter 

shade 
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep. 
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy 

To kings that fear their subjects' 
treachery ? " 

The hill country is, moreover, the haunt of 
the babbling brooks, the "little rivers"; and 
there be those to whom the sound of the bab- 
bling, purling waters of a brook is the most 
delicious note in nature. "There's no music 
like a little river's," writes Robert Louis Steven- 
son in "Prince Otto." "It plays the same tune 
(and that's the favourite) over and over again, 
and yet does not weary of it like men fiddlers. 



126 The Somerset Hills. 

It takes the mind out of doors ; and though 
we should be grateful for good houses, there 
is, after all, no house like God's out-of-doors. 
And lastly, sir, it quiets a man down like say- 
ing his prayers." 

But the lowlander may not share this par- 
tiality for the hill country. Like the Lincoln- 
shire farmer in Alton Locke, he will have 
"none o' this darned ups and downs o' hills 
to shake a body's victuals out of his inwards," 
but he would have "all so vlat as a barn 
door for vorty mile on end — there's a country 
to live in! " Ah, well! "Chacun a son mauvais 
gout.'* 

For the hill dweller will persistently regard 
the lowlands as a land of exile. He may be 
out-argued in the matter and have to admit 
that the coign of vantage is not always in 
his favour ; but he will insist that the hill 
country is the only fit dwelling-place. That 
here, more than otherwhere, lovers of nature, 



The Somerset Hills. 127 

of "God's out-of-doors," find her responsive 
to every passing mood. Her sympathies are 
eternal and infinite; her influences manifold. 
Some of these are reflected in the following 
sonnet: 

"O Earth! thou hast not any wind that blows 
Which is not music; every weed of thine 
Pressed rightly flows in aromatic wine; 

And every humble hedgerow flower that 
grows, 
And every little brown bird that doth sing, 

Hath something greater than itself, and bears 
A living word to every living thing, 

Albeit it holds the message unawares. 

All shapes and sounds have something which 
is not 

Of them; a Spirit broods amid the grass; 
Vague outlines of the Everlasting Thought 

Lie in the melting shadows as they pass; 
The touch of an Eternal Presence thrills 
The fringes of the sunsets and the hills." 



The Somerset Hills. 129 



X. 

NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Frontispiece. 

Book Plate of Seymour, Duke of Somerset, 
from a copy of the original, engraved on 
steel by B. Clowes. 

"The Dust of a Vanished Race." Facing 
Page 20. Specimen arrow heads found in 
Somerset County. Drawings the exact size 
of the originals in a private collection. 

General Knox's Headquarters, Bedminster. 
Facing Page ^4. The house still stands 
as originally built. Illustration is from a 
drawing made in 1900. 

Sir Francis Bernard. Facing Page 62. From 
the original painting by Copley in the 
hall of Christ Church, Oxford; by per- 



1 30 The Somerset Hills. 



mission of the Dean and Canons of Christ 
Church, and through the kindness of 
Messrs. Macmillan & Co., of London. Au- 
thor's note in The American Revolution, 
by John Fiske. Illustrated Edition. 'Pub- 
lished by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin &- Co., 

by whose courtesy the portrait is here pre- 
sented. 

Facsimile of General Lee's Writing. Page 70. 
This letter, written at Basking Ridge just 
before his capture, was an important link 
in the chain of evidence that established 
Lee's treason. 

Mrs. White's Tavern. Facing Page 76. The 
frame of the original tavern is incorpo- 
rated in the house occupying the original 
site. The drawing was made from a 
woodcut, circa 1850, before the house was 
remodelled. 

Caricature of General Lee. Facing Page 78. 



The Somerset Hills. 



From the engraving in Girdlestone's Facts 
tending to prove that General Lee was the 
Author of Junius, London, 1813. The 
drawing was made by Barham Rush- 
brooke, on Lee's return from Poland in 
1766, in the uniform of an aide to King 
Stanislaus, and shows the inevitable dog. 
According to Dr. Girdlestone, "though 
designed as a caricature, it was allowed 
by all who knew General Lee to be the 
only successful delineation, either of his 
countenance or person." The absurd 
notion that Lee might have been the 
author of The Letters of Junius had its 
origin in a particularly audacious lie 
which he told to Thomas Rodney, of 
Delaware, in 1773. Author's note in The 
American Revolution, by John Fiske. Il- 
lustrated Edition. Published by Messrs. 
Houghton, Mifflin &- Co., by whose courtesy 
this portrait is here presented. 



132 The Somerset Hills. 

East Front of Stirling Manor House. Fac- 
ing Page S6. After a drawing made 
about 1850, at which time this front still 
remained as it was built by Lord Stirling. 
The cedar tree shown in the foreground 
is the one under which, according to 
one tradition, Lady Kitty Alexander was 
married to Colonel Duer in July, 1779. 
According to another tradition, she 
stepped out on the lawn in her bridal 
gown, after the ceremony, and under 
this tree received the congratulations of 
a company of soldiers who assembled to 
honour their Major-General's daughter. 

William Alexander, first Lord Stirling. Fac- 
ing Page 92. From a copy of the ex- 
ceedingly rare engraving by William 
Marshall. "In 1637 Lord Stirling published 
his collected works (with the exception 
of his 'Aurora ') under the title of * Rec- 



The Somerset Hills. 133 



reations with the Muses.' Marshall en- 
graved his portrait, which, it is stated, the 
noble Lord placed only in the copies pre- 
sented to his friends. It is a fact that 
it is found in only a very few copies 
and has always been considered rare." 

Major-General the Earl of Stirling. Facing 
Page loi. From the portrait engraved 
for The Life of William Alexander, Earl 
of Stirling. New Jersey Historical Society, 
1847. 

Relics of The Buildings. Page 128. Weather 
Vane and Bell owned by The Washing- 
ton Association of New Jersey and pre- 
served in Washington's Headquarters at 
Morristown. 



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